


Face the raven

by Nagiru



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: (and they're talking about their 11th regeneration and their 12th while being in their 13th), Dreams, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, POST-Angels Take Manhattan, except more of a Emotional Hurt/No Comfort, kind-of 13/River but not really?, post-Library (but not a fix-it), some problem with nouns because it's the Doctor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-12-26 13:31:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18283289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nagiru/pseuds/Nagiru
Summary: Sometimes, River appears to the Doctor in her dreams. That is not always a good thing.





	Face the raven

**Author's Note:**

> By the way, the title was chosen simply because I really love the imagery of the "Face the Raven" episode, not because it has anything to do with it, okay? I barely mention the scene, and then use it to do a wrap-up, but, like, this is totally focused on River and the Ponds, not Clara. Clara is just a distant thought that popped up.
> 
> So, uh, maybe I should mention that I'm a new-ish fan of Doctor Who (only actually got into it when the 11th season started being released, because I was curious about "the female Doctor". Then I started watching Matt Smith's Doctor, and loved it, and by now I've watched all of the New Who episodes, but... well. New-ish). And that I've never actually written a DW story before. I've started a couple, sure, but never really felt pleased with the characterizations, so...
> 
> For those who've not read the tags, let me do a quick recap: this is not a happy story. It's a short drabble of emotional hurt with no comfort that deal with a dead River and the deaths of Amy and Rory. Really, it's all about guilt and bad choices, and facing one's own raven (thus the name; also, here I use it as "face their own fears", partly because of the poem The Raven, if it's not clear). So... Beware.
> 
> Disclaimer thing-y, I don't own Doctor Who and the characters, and I make no money from this.

The Doctor opened her eyes to the swirling of stars of the Time Vortex, a stinging pain reaching her cheek immediately, and she knew she was asleep.

Before her, River Song stood, righteous anger and as beautiful as she'd been when the Doctor first saw her, and the Doctor swallowed hard. She was asleep, her wife was  _just here_ , and she'd just been hit in the face.

Something told her this wasn't going to be a good dream.

Dream River proved her right not a moment later, crossing her arms and clenching her jaw painfully.

“You could have found a way around. Tried to circumvent it. Couldn't you,  _Doctor_?” She asked, but it was more of a demand, more of a war cry. It was pain and wrath and every damn thing she… He… Had ever done to hurt her, all twined together. It was the way  _he_ had turned his back to her pain, the way  _she_ had ignored her so many times…

It was the way they'd let her believe she wasn't loved, just because that was  _easier_. Because that meant they'd hurt less.

“Yes.” She whispered back, and she could have, and she didn't even have to ask  _what_. She knew  _what_. It was in the way River held herself, in the pain in her eyes, in the sheer  _grief_ she displayed. She  _could have._ She couldhavetried a different year. She could have gone even further in the past, asked them to go somewhere else — a whole different  _country_ , if that meant the paradox would be thinner, easier to cross. She could have gone back and  _waited_ , like she (he) once did for the Master... For  _Missy_... "But I didn't. I didn't  _want to_."

River stared, and she was as bright and deadly as any star, and the Doctor shivered. She never deserved her wife, but it was only sometimes that she ever dared to think about how much better River would have been  _without them_. Without the Doctor, darkening her life from her very birth.

“I didn't… I didn't, because I didn't want to explain to Amy… I didn't want to explain to beautiful,  _magnificent_ Amelia Pond, the girl who  _waited for me_ , and gorgeous,  _amazingly kind_ Rory… Roricus the Roman, The Last Centurion, waiting 2000 years for a woman…” she laughed, but it was as hollow as her heart right now, and she lifted a hand to swipe at tears that just  _weren't there._ “I didn't want to explain to  _your parents_ that, yeah, you know River, my wife and your daughter? You know how I told you she'd be  _fine_? Yes, well, that was a  _lie_!” she yelled, and her pain was as fresh now as it had been when she realized that this woman she was marrying was the same woman who had died. For her. To save the universe. In a goddamned Library.

River's breath left her silently, but just as judgmentally.

The Doctor let her hand fall down, and stared at her quietly, judging her anger. Judging how screwed she was.

There was still space for more, she decided.

“I didn't want to tell them that you had died, for me, and I never  _saved you_. My own wife.” She smiled wryly. “So, yeah. I left them in the time paradox, and never looked back, because at least they were  _alive_. Which was more than I could say for  _you_ , at the very least!… And about half of my friends,” she admitted with a choked up laugh. “They were alive and together, and let's be honest? That's the best I could offer them. I had to stand over their graves…  _You_ had to stand over their graves, and I will always be sorry for that, but, you know me; I'm a coward… But at least they died  _together_. And, more importantly, I never had to _watch them die_. Not this time. This time, I just watched them go — and knew they had lived. A long, happy life.  _Together_.” She screwed her eyes closed, unwilling to watch judgment pass over River's face once again. “I'm sorry that I hurt you. Again. I'm sorry they weren't ready for that decision. But I was  _happy_ to let them go like that.  _Peacefully_. Painfully, yes. But  _peacefully._ ”

She thought of a raven, and a last stand that was both beautiful and so very sad, and felt just a slightly bit more dead inside, and felt just the slightest bit more thankful that she hadn’t had to watch _Amelia_ there. Facing the Raven.

Moments later, when she opened her eyes again, she was alone in the Time Vortex. Just the Doctor and her thoughts, driving her mad, and it was just like the first time she’d first stared at this wilderness — all these possibilities, all this _life_ just made her mad, just made her want to _run_. Forever. So she ran.

And she laughed.

She laughed, and kept laughing until she woke up, choking on a sob.

Even her dreams of her late wife were ready to blame her. Of course they were. Well… _She deserved that_ , she admitted wryly.

Now… if only she could bring herself to admit at least some of that to the _real_ River and ease  _her_ pain…

The Doctor guessed it was long overdue. She had run from her problems for too long, now. It was time _she_ faced her own Ravens.

**Author's Note:**

> This drabble popped up very unannounced, but by the end I was satisfied with it, and I've now adopted it as headcanon, because, really, wtf. The Doctor plays fast and loose with time and space, c'mon, he should've at least _tried_ to get to Amy and Rory. Instead, he just abandoned them in past-New York, and that was that? So... yeah, I guess he just didn't _want_ to go to them. They'd already left him a couple times, at least, and he was always so afraid of standing over their graves, of watching them die (of watching any of his friends die)... this was easier. Cleaner. This way, he knew they'd lived long lives together, and that they'd died... happily-ish. And, well, this way he wouldn't have to explain to them why River stopped appearing after a while when he _promised them_ their daughter was gonna be FINE.
> 
> Hope you've enjoyed it!  
> Like I said before, I make no money out of this -- but I'd be really happy if someone could drop me a comment?


End file.
